What Is the Catholic Mass? The "Mysteries" and What the Word Really Means

Before walking through the Mass part by part, Dr. Brant Pitre begins with a word the Mass uses for itself: "mystery." In this opening session of The Mass Explained, he points out that the liturgy calls itself a mystery in three places — the Penitential Act ("prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries"), the Offertory ("by the mystery of this water and wine"), and right after the Consecration ("the mystery of faith"). He then shows, with the Catechism, that the Greek mysterion — translated into Latin as both mysterium and sacramentum — does not mean a puzzle to be solved but a visible sign that makes an invisible, divine reality present. This is why the early Church called teaching on the Mass "mystagogy": leading people "from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified" (CCC 774, 1075). He lays out the method that will guide the whole series — Scripture, Tradition, and Mystery — showing where each part of the Mass comes from in the Bible, how it developed in the Roman liturgy, and what hidden reality it signifies.

Key passages & sources examined: the "sacred mysteries" (Penitential Act), "the mystery of this water and wine" (Offertory), and "the mystery of faith" (Consecration) in the Order of Mass; mysterion translated as mysterium and sacramentum, and the meaning of "mystagogy" (CCC 774, 1075).